There are plenty of electrical apparatuses and elements inside electrical control cabinets or equipment within factories and buildings. Malfunction of these electrical apparatuses may cause energy to be wasted, accidental fires, and interruption of production lines, etc., due to long-term operation, poor maintenance, and over loading, etc. of the electrical apparatuses. A power failure in a high tech factory can result in a loss of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. The potential loss for the damage to the company's goodwill can be even higher. Moreover, malfunction of these electrical apparatuses may danger human lives. It is better to physically detect and monitor the temperature of the electrical elements inside the electrical control cabinets or equipment. However, the space inside the electrical control cabinets and equipment is small, and there is no available technique or product to meet the demand for real-time monitoring of the electrical elements inside a small space. Alternatively, thermal imaging cameras that cost more than ten thousand U.S. dollars are used for semiannual or annual inspections instead. These inspections require much time and effort. Furthermore, the problems of accidental fires, interruptions of the production line, etc. may still occur in the duration between inspections. The risk still can not be effectively lowered.
As technology is continuously being improved, production equipment becomes more and more precise, complex, huge and expensive. Losses due to the above-mentioned risks become larger than ever, especially for high tech industries, such as semiconductor and optoelectronics industries. Therefore, a solution that is effective and at a reasonable cost for the above-mentioned problems is required, and can contribute to risk and security management for enterprises and industries.
In order to eliminate the problems and drawbacks of the conventional techniques, new concepts and the solutions are proposed in the present invention so as to effectively and economically solve the above-mentioned problems. The present invention is described below.